


we could make forever after all

by nyxique



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Seven Deadly Sins, everyone else is just mentioned, they're happy and in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-09 14:30:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15269502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyxique/pseuds/nyxique
Summary: She was going to start a revolution on Luna, she declared, with the same determined gleam in her eye he knew, and he fell in love all over again.OR: The seven deadly sins according to Cinder and Kai.





	we could make forever after all

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! if this looks (somewhat) familiar, it's because i had it up on my ffn account, but i decided to go through and edit/rework this fic and post it here!
> 
> not sure exactly why it's seven deadly sins themed but my younger self just ran with it apparently
> 
> (title is lyrics from [cinderblock garden](https://youtu.be/KXaNYOWPiYg) by all time low)

**_I. Lust_ **

Cinder had always had a lust for adventure, for freedom.

She’d been legally bound to, _owned_ by Adri since age eleven. She yearned to pack up and leave, to travel anywhere and everywhere with Iko and Peony.

Then the plague had taken her sister, and she couldn't bear to stay any longer than she had to. Once the car was done, she and Iko would be gone.

Yeah, well. That was the plan, anyway.

Instead she’d found herself at the center of a war, a long-lost princess struggling to overthrow the tyrannical Lunar queen with the help of her childhood best friend, a newly-crowned emperor, an ex-convict, a French pilot, a hybrid Lunar soldier, a shy hacker, a Lunar guard with a really good poker face and a long-lost cousin.

She later realizes, as she meets Kai's gaze at the end of the aisle, that she wouldn't have it any other way.

  
  
**_II. Gluttony_**  
  


The Eastern Commonwealth's grand ballroom is alive with applause and the gentle swaying of shimmering gowns. Lanterns strung about the room give off a warm glow and refreshment tables line the walls, filled with a large variety of both native and foreign delicacies. It’s just as lavish as the previous year, but the threat of Levana’s rule is nonexistent.

Emperor Kaito leads Queen Selene Blackburn down the grand staircase with a gentle hand and the crowd shifts back to accommodate, the applause that arose from their announcement dying back down into mindless chatter. Once most of the attention is elsewhere, the Lunar queen’s shoulders visibly slump.

“I don’t know how you do this every day,” Cinder complains, falling forward slightly onto Kai’s shoulder.

Kai hums sympathetically. “You’ll have to get used to it, love.”

This earns another whine from Cinder. Kai stretches an arm over her shoulder, trying not to laugh, but Cinder still sees his amused smile and sticks her tongue out playfully.

Cinder’s gaze catches something behind him and she makes a small noise in the back of her throat, clutching at Kai’s arm and dragging him through the crowd and toward one of the refreshment tables lined along the wall.

At his curious look, Cinder shrugs. "I didn't get to try the food last time."

Cinder hesitantly tastes a spicy roll-like pastry, practically moans and shoves five more into her mouth. Kai snorts. She’s too adorable, really.

Until this moment, Kai never knew how much of an appetite she really had. Perhaps it’s a result of the lack of food while living with her guardian (Kai shudders), or because they’d spent the better part of last year rationing food on board the Rampion.

She turns to him, cheeks full. "What?"

The emperor just chuckles at his girlfriend and presses his lips to her forehead. "Nothing."

  
  
**_III. Greed_**  
  


Cinder, by nature, is not a greedy person.

She’s never had the chance to be, not really. Not when the envy of her ruthless aunt had taken her mother and had almost taken her; not when she’d spent eight years of her life unconscious in a suspended animation tank, only to be stuck in the care of an unsympathetic guardian at age eleven with a jumble of wires and fake memories in her head.

She supposes, however, that this does not extend to Kai. Cinder can admit to being a bit selfish where the young emperor is concerned.

She knows a part of him will always belong to his people – he is the emperor, after all – but she can’t help but wish she had him all to herself.

She’d never imagined being able to catch someone’s attention like this; never thought she’d be this important to anyone, this cherished, this _loved_. It’s entirely new, and entirely intoxicating – the feeling she gets around Kai is _addicting_.

Much to her relief, Kai seems to feel the same way. So she bears it; she accepts his role as emperor just as he accepts her role as princess, then queen, then empress. They take solace in the private moments they share, in the parts of themselves only the other gets to see.

  
  
**_IV. Sloth_**  
  


Sunlight dances in through the translucent curtains, illuminating specks of dust swirling about the room and warming tangled silk sheets. It’s early – too early, in Cinder’s opinion – and the remnants of the sunrise paint the room a molten gold.

It takes her a moment to remember where she is; Kai’s – hers and Kai’s – quarters in the New Beijing palace, because she lives here now, she’s the future empress, they’re _engaged_. They’re going to spend the rest of their lives together.

Cinder blinks awake and attempts to rub the heaviness of sleep from her eyes. The arm around her middle tightens at her slight movement, and she turns in its hold just in time to see her fiancé yawn. She hums in response and reaches up to push fine strands of hair out of his eyes.

“G’morning,” Kai murmurs, voice soft to match the morning’s atmosphere.

She hides her smile against his chest. “S’too early,” she mumbles, words muffled by Kai’s sleep shirt. A warm hand runs down her back and she sinks into it, sinks into the feeling of love and light and home.

Lips press against the top of her head. “We don’t have anything to do today.”

Breath catching, she pulls back far enough to meet Kai’s eyes. “Really?” The disbelief in her voice is palpable – the emperor and future empress of the Eastern Commonwealth rarely ever have time to themselves, especially with an approaching royal wedding and coronation ceremony.

Kai grins, sleepy but bright, and strokes his thumb along her cheek. “Yeah, really. We’re almost done with wedding preparations, and there’s nothing else scheduled...”

“Mm…” Cinder catches Kai’s hand in hers and twines their fingers. He brings them to his lips, pressing kisses against each knuckle, and a warning goes off in the corner of her vision: _Overheating. Initiating cooling procedure_.

Kai’s smile stretches into a smirk. “Your cooling thing totally just kicked in.”

“Shut it,” Cinder snorts and lightly smacks his shoulder. “Jerk.”

“ _Your_ jerk.”

Cinder rolls her eyes at her fiancé, unable to hide a fond smile. With a sigh, she pushes herself up and stretches her arms above her head, wincing as her shoulders pop. “We should take a bath.”

It’s something she suggests whenever they have time. She’s still not used to being able to bathe without cleaning water out of every little nook and cranny of her prosthetics, lest they start to rust – she’d never even been able to enjoy a proper bath before she’d been given waterproof limbs.

Kai agrees with an impossibly affectionate look, and they roll out of bed to head to the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, Cinder is lying back against Kai’s chest in their large bathtub, shoulder-deep in warm water and smelling of lavender. She’d used one of the bathbombs Cress had gotten from one of her visits to Europe and insisted that she and Kai _absolutely had to try them, okay_.

Cinder has to admit the scent combined with the warmth of the water is relaxing, especially as arms circle her waist and a kiss is pressed to her shoulder.

Kai’s voice is still thick with sleep when he whispers against her damp skin, “I love you.”

Cinder finds Kai’s hands under the water and laces their fingers together. 

“I love you too.”

  
  
**_V. Wrath_**  
  


The only other time she’s experienced Kai even remotely this angry was when he’d woken up onboard the Rampion after being kidnapped from his own room.

To be fair, she’s angry too, but her programming keeps her hormone levels in balance and initiates her calming procedure. She’s glad for it; she doesn’t want to lose her head at her and Kai's first press conference after the official repeal of the Cyborg Protection Act.

Despite his rage, Kai seems to be holding his own. The only way one could tell his emotions is through his clenched jaw and the darkening of his eyes, which Cinder is sure only she is able to see.

She fists the front of her dress in her hands, watching her partner (boyfriend?) prepare his answer to the reporter's question.

"With all due respect, I believe your statement is incorrect. Cyborgs are just as human as anyone else. They have feelings, emotions and morals. The Cyborg Protection Act was unfair and outdated and I believe the repealing of it to be perfectly reasonable," Kai finishes, a hard edge to his voice. "Next question?"

-

"I can't believe that guy asked something like that!" Kai exclaims furiously, pacing hard circles around the coffee table in his office.

Cinder rises from her place on the couch and rubs her hands over his shoulders, effectively stopping his enraged pacing. "Kai, calm down. We knew this kind of change wouldn’t happen overnight."

Kai visibly deflates, head slumping against her shoulder, and she combs titanium fingers through his hair. "I know, I just... it's hard to believe I used to feel like that guy. It was pretty obvious, wasn't it?"

Cinder laughs lightly. "A little bit, but look at you now. First repealing that stupid law, and then dating a cyborg. A Lunar one, at that. You're practically a revolutionary."

She relaxes when Kai laughs. His arms slide around her, pulling her even closer. Cinder presses a light kiss against his neck, murmuring, "Everything will turn out okay. Just you see."

  
  
**_VI. Envy_**  
  


It’s the little things.

Things that shouldn’t matter; things like headaches in place of tears, jarring warning messages instead of delicate blushes. Things that _should_ be insignificant, yet never fail to remind her that over a third of her own body is synthetic – thirty-six point twenty-eight percent, to be exact.

Though most of the world was supportive when she and Kai had announced their engagement, not everyone had been so accepting. _They're not human_ , they say, what was the emperor thinking, undoing the Cyborg Protection Act?

The netscreen in their room is showing footage of a small protest in the southern part of the commonwealth when Kai walks in. Cinder sits on the bed, legs folded beneath her, staring blankly at the screen and fiddling absentmindedly with the titanium joints in her left hand.

"Cinder?"

She startles, turning toward her fiancé. "Oh, Kai. How did the meeting go?"

"Fine," Kai narrows his eyes. "Why are you watching that?"

"Oh. Um," Cinder winces and breaks their eye contact. "They're showing the – the cyborg protests and I—"

"Netscreen, off." Kai sighs, pulling off his jacket and shoes before climbing onto the bed beside Cinder. He reaches an arm over her shoulders, bringing her in close and pressing lips against her temple. "Watching that isn't good for you, you know."

She chews her lip, curling in on herself. "I know, I just... I can't help but wonder sometimes. What it's like to not be cyborg, I mean."

Kai strokes her arm comfortingly and chuckles. "We'd be dead, probably." Cinder smothers a small laugh into her hand and he grins against her hair. "Seriously though, sweetheart. You're perfect just the way you are, okay? Stuff like this just takes time.”

Her stomach flips at Kai's term of endearment, and she smiles lightly. "I know.”

They stay there for a bit, simply breathing together, before Kai moves to stand.

He pulls her up and off the bed, offering his arm with a cheesy grin. "Now, dinner, Your Highness?"

Cinder snorts but hooks her arm through his anyway. "Certainly, Your Majesty."

  
  
**_VII. Pride_**  
  


He supposes it started when they first met. Kai was looking for a mechanic, the one considered the best in New Beijing, to fix Nainsi – he could only have the best working on an android containing such valuable information, after all.

He was surprised – but not unpleasantly – when she popped up from behind the booth, forehead smeared with grease and frazzled hair pulled back by a rubber band. He was even more surprised when she told him _she_ was Linh Cinder, that the city’s finest mechanic was a skinny teenage girl with brown eyes and a pretty smile.

Instead of disappointment, he actually felt strangely proud of the girl; it couldn’t have been easy for her to gain such a reputation in the market.

(He definitely didn’t find her blunt sarcasm and disheveled appearance endearing. Absolutely not.)

Much later, she appeared at the top of the grand staircase at the annual Peace Ball, rain-soaked and covered in smudges of grease. But she was determined, despite the stares she received. He rather liked that she didn’t seem intimidated by the attention. Uncomfortable, sure, but not afraid.

By then he fancied himself a tiny bit in love with her.

Then she managed to break out of his highest security prison, and the pride he felt for her accomplishment came with a stab of guilt and betrayal; the possibility of war rested on whether his military could capture the elusive Linh Cinder, and he was starting to doubt whether he even knew her at all – whether what they had was even real – yet still found himself wishing desperately for her safety.

Kai often tried to imagine the shy, stuttering mechanic making her grand escape, strategizing while hidden among the stars. It always brought a smile to his face and a flutter to his stomach, a nice distraction from Levana's threats.

When he discovered that she was likely looking for the long-lost Lunar Princess and had possibly found her, the pride also brought a spark of hope.

He’d been fully aware of how much he admired her, and how it must have look to his advisor. But Torin didn't understand. He couldn’t; he didn't know that their interactions had always felt _real_.

He was again swept up in the chaos of his planned marriage to Levana, along with the impending dread of having to subject his people to such a heartless empress.

Understandably, he’d been both proud and furious when Cinder and her accomplices kidnapped him from his own bedroom.

Then he saw she was still the same Linh Cinder he knew. The same timid insecurity, the same dry sense of humor. Now, though, she was Lunar. She was a princess. She was going to start a revolution on Luna, she declared, with the same determined gleam in her eye he knew, and he fell in love all over again.

Now, he stands at her side, gazing out the large windows at the remnants of the revolution in sparkling cities of Luna, and the pride is back. She had done it. She’d reclaimed her throne, and he wants to shout out to the world about how amazing she is.

Instead, he slips an arm around her waist and tucks her into his side, smoothing her bangs back and pressing his lips to her forehead. "I'm so proud of you," he tells her, smiling as she relaxes into him and threads her fingers through his.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to yell with me about tlc on tumblr! (my tlc sideblog is [channary](https://channary.tumblr.com/))


End file.
